Just another two-toned MCM

And Voila!  Another two-toned mcm.  This piece was awesome, I loved the wood pulls that stick out at both the top and the bottom of each drawer, it doesn't come out well in the pics, but in real life they add some great visual interest.

The piece itself was in really good shape.  There were a few dings and nicks in the top and sides of the unit, so after sanding back, I filled with two coats of wood filler, sanding well after each to smooth things out.  That took care of the problem and she looked good as new!

After cleaning off the sanding dust I primed the entire body of the dresser with 2 coats of GRIPPER.  I only started using this primer recently and I really love it.  It gives fantastic coverage and has awesome adhesion. I didn't sand back to the bare wood on this one, just a good deglossing, so fortunately I didnt need to whip out the Zinsser BIN for bleed through.

The drawer facings were in great condition and they have a wonderful colour that features warm amber/reddish tones, so I just gave them a good clean and left them original.

I considered staining the legs, but opted to paint the out instead to create a sense of airiness under the dresser.   I then painted with my Dulux Diamond in Pearl (2 coats) which I custom tinted to a creamy off-white.

She turned out great and was definitely worth the drive to pick up!

Contemporary-meets-vintage nightstands (and a SURPRISE!)

I forgot to snap a before of these ones, but they are the matching nightstands to the dresser in my previous post.  Although they didn't have the Nike 'swooshes', they did have the pipe-shaped pulls, and the diamond shaped legs. 

I gave them the exact same treatment as the  long dresser.  Two coats primer and fours coats of paint.  I also stripped the tops and restained them.

They also recieved the same new hardware as their older sister.

The original drawers had two pulls on each drawer, so I had to fill four holes, as well as drill two knew ones.  I have decided I am not a huge fan of filling holes!

We initially had the nightstands stored upsidedown.  Mr Chuckles pulled out the drawer to look at the grain and discovered this little gem!!  Over 40s porn!  Ha ha.  We had a good laugh at this.  We had purchased the set from a lovely older German lady who was moving to be closer to the nursing home where her husband now lives. Clearly he forgot to thoroughly pack when he moved into his new digs!

Contemporary-meets-Vintage

This dresser took me to the brink and back.  I was nearly ready to pack in my paint brushes for good.  I cant be certain, but Im think it took me about 15-20 hours to refinish.  Way tooooo long.  Oh my word. This is the dresser I said I was going to pop a bottle of bubbly when she was all done.  Yep, it was that bad.  I needed alchohol in a big way at the end of this project.

That is what she looked like before.  She wasnt bad, but I knew I wanted to go for a contemporary - meets - vintage vibe, and those swirly little details and pipe-shaped wooden pulls were not going to cut the mustard.

Although I think she turned out great.  I am not so sure it was worth all the trouble.  Being honest here.

Ok, so lets talk 'steps' in this transformation.  First, we stripped the top down (to read about this experience click 'here'). Then we sanded smooth with the orbital, as well as sanding the rest of the dresser.

Secondly we had to fill all the holes on the drawers, there were 6 on each drawer.  This took two coats of wood filler, with sanding between each coat.

Because I opted to remove the Nike 'swooshes', I had a lot of little nail holes to fill.  These were finicky! Every time I thought I had them perfectly sanded, I would prime and do a coat of paint, only to realize that I could still see the holes.  I filled them three times before I was happy.  

I bought new hardware, I knew I wanted something that was gold, simple, contemporary yet still vintage.

I restained the top in a custom mix featuring walnut with some orangey hues.  I was surprised that the top didn't go as dark as I expected.  But I actually like the lightness of it as it shows the grain nicely.  I protected with tung oil and a coat of paste wax.

Initially I left the inside of the cupboard door white, but I wasn't happy with it, so I modpodged on some gray/white contemporary paper for a little bit of interest and 'wow' factor.

I had to change out the legs too.  The back legs were great, but the front legs had this weird diamond shape to them.  I wanted simple and clean lines, so they simply wouldn't do.  Four new legs please.

Big exhale here. I don't mean to whinge, but man, this girl was a lot more work than I anticipated!  I am treating myself by doing a quick and easy dresser next with lots of rustic character to it.  Cant wait!  White is so time consuming.  I did two coats of primer, and 4 coats of paint!

Off to drink the champers now!

9-Drawer in Gray and White

Keeping with my recent gray and white theme, I decided to refinish this lovely mid century dresser in.....you guessed it -  GRAY and WHITE!  

This solid wood dresser was in very good shape apart from a few things.  All of the plastic drawer runners needed replacing because the wobble of the drawer had them bonking all about.  I needed to do some planing on the middle door as it had swelled and was scraping when it was being closed, and the top needed to be sanded very deeply in order to remove some very deep scratches.  Other than that, it was in great shape.

I used a very similar shade of gray to the little antique dresser I just refinished (here).  It is light and fresh and is versatile in its ability to blend in to any decor.

How about this awesome gray decorative paper!  Sha-zam!  I think it makes a great addition and contrast having the dark gray beside the light gray.

As usual, I used modpodge to attach this contemporary paper. I love adding paper to drawers behind cupboard doors, it has such 'wow' factor when the door is opened. 'come on in and play with my drawers!' it screams.

Because I didn't distress this piece, I primed the entire thing with Zinsser BIN.

For the middle door, I highlighted the recessed detailing with white, I also painted the hardware white and added a white square trim detail around both sets of outer drawers to add a more chic feel to it.

Im not sure why these pics all came out so blurry, but hopefully you get the idea!

Charcoal and White Dresser

I knew as soon as I saw this little gem what I wanted to do with it.  I have been wanting to do a charcoal gray with white highlighting for a little while now, and this dresser was the perfect candidate for that vision with its great trim work on the drawer facings.

I love the low streamline look of it, and I knew it would be a great modern-contemporary piece with crisp lines and no distressing.

I also really like the original hardware, squarish and blocky, it reminds me of campaign dressers.

There was two pieces of trim missing which the original owner had lost, so Mr. Chuckles helped me source some new trim and cut it to size.  I also decided to go with four circle pulls across the top, original it only had two in the top middle drawer. I thought it would look more consistent if they went all the way across the top.

I have used this colour before (here) and love how the dark gray looks when it is topped with wipe on poly. It offers a great low lustre hand-rubbed sheen.

Painting out the trim was the most time consuming step.  I had to tape it, because I couldn’t get a clean line freehanding.  I taped all the drawers, then I did a base coat of the gray to seal the tape line, and topped it with three coats of white.  Unfortunately I did get some bleed through in a few places, but it was easily touched up by hand.

I love the legs on this piece.  I really love furniture with legs, so it was nice to get a piece with them already attached!

Happy Sunday everyone!

The Before!

Big Bertha Dressed In Turquoise

I promised a ‘big bertha’, and now I present Big Bertha!  My word, this ol girl almost embarrassed herself by not fitting into my Mazda 3 hatchback.  I had to give her a subtle lecture about diet and nutrition, because she is... big and chunky!  Almost 7 feet long and definitely over 200lbs (sorry Bertha, but disclosing your weight is for your own good).  Eat some lettuce.

I clearly love this shade of turquoise/teal, because I have used it a billion times now.  I use it so much that my neighbor stopped by for a garage-chat the other day and asked ‘are you still painting that dresser?’ I paused midstroke and threw him a puzzled look before stammering, ‘No, I finished that one months ago, this is different one.’  I was too ashamed to tell him I had done about five other ones in the same colour in between the one he was referring to and this one. 

He is also the same neighbor who when I told him I rescued a beautiful credenza that was bound for the dump (this post), asked me if that was the colour I received it in (I had painted it the same shade of turquoise) implying that I hadn’t done anything to it yet!  Men.  They just don’t appreciate a nice shade of turquoise.  I did take a dose of pleasure a week later by complimenting his turquoise shorts and quipping that he matched my furniture.  He may or may not have blushed.  He may or may not have got my point. But I had a little inward swell of vindication. 

But back to Bertha!  She was in great shape for such a hefty girl.  I custom tinted some primer before covering her up in my favorite colour. 

The hardware was beautiful in it’s grandness, but it was very dull and dark, so I blasted her with some gold spray paint to really amp up the contrast with the dresser.

 I did some heavy distressing to reveal the lovely dark wood – a little peek-a-boo.  I also accented with some light blue piping and a touch of yellow to tie in with the gold.

The cupboard opens up to reveal three more drawers which I finished in a turquoise/navy chevron paper for a pop of fun.

I love big-bertha, but it will take a big room to handle a statuesque woman like her.  She is too much women for my little hallway, indeed!


Linking up to party with:

miss mustard seed

Turquoise Distressed Dresser

This piece was so much fun to work on.  It had so much character with all that ornate detailing, and the hardware is simply swoon worthy!

I felt really lucky to find this piece because a few months ago I responded to an ad for the same set and tried to get the seller to just sell me the dresser (and not the rest of the set).  My offer was refused and I remember I was so upset because I had such a vision of what could be done with it.

Fast forward 4 months, and I found the same dresser, for sale all by itself!  Thank you furniture gods!

I confess I was going to use emerald.  In fact I had behr 'precious emerald' colour matched in my dulux as I was inspired by this piece by Pam at 'Simple Details' .  My emerald turned out much more 'forest green' than this one though, and I was a little reluctant to try it out.  So instead I played it safe and opted for my fav shade of turquoise (again!).

I painted the insides of the recessed detailing two shades lighter than the  turquoise body, and again accented with some blue and yellow.  Everything got a good distressing to 'vintage' it up a bit. As usual, the detailing is hard to see in the pictures. Sigh.

I just can't get enough of the hardware.  They are little works of art all by themselves!  They are like butterflies, all set to flutter away.

linking up to:

missmustard see.com

http://www.savvysouthernstyle.net/